The Sweet King Life: Projects Projects Projects and a Party

In the last 2 weeks, we have been very busy over here at the King household. As stated in a previous post, we have been doing a lot of projects around the house, hoping that it will sell sell sell.... Plus, these are some projects that we wanted to have done anyways.

List of Projects
#1: Clear out Basement Bedroom

- We have a wonderful finished basement in our home. One of the rooms is rather large and was currently used as an office/ holding spot of my old living room furniture that I had before John & I got married. We had some realtors mention that it could be a great Master Bedroom, & would probably show better if people could see it as a Master Bedroom. So John & I cleared out this large room. John & I both view homes differently. I can walk into a house, view a room & clear out the ugly decor, paint and see the possiblities of what it can be in my mind. John is not that way. He thinks if it has a bed in it, it has to be a bedroom, and has to stay that color, etc, etc.... So, I'm thinking that maybe other buyers have the same mindset of my husband. With that, we thought that if people view a room as a "blank canvas" it might get their wheels spinning in their heads of what they could do..... Onto the work- I never knew how much stuff accumulates, and how much stuff we neeeeeeeeeed to keep. This room has definitely been the landing spot of unused & unwanted things. We donated tons to Goodwill, but in John's eyes it wasn't enough! But Project #1 was marked off the list (of course, I have a list of all of this, you know me!)- as completed.

Basement Before:

Now the room's just empty.... Kinda sad, but we were going to have to do it anyways.....

#2: Pressure Wash the back deck, Stain & Seal it

-I loooooooove me some power tools. However, growing up, I didn't really see a lot of them.... well, unless the workers came over to fix something. My dad, bless his heart, is not a Mr. Fix-it. If something went wrong in our house, he called his handymen to fix just about anything. So when they would come over, I was always just wanting to hang around within eye sight to watch them to their thing.... Especially when it came to power tools. And when I saw a pressure washer being used, I immediately went downstairs & asked, "Do you mind if I try that thing?" Well, from that moment on I was hooked! There is just something about being able to see something go from being SO dirty to clean in a matter of just a few seconds! So, I decided that our back deck needed to be pressure washed, and then stained & resealed. It took about a day to do and wasn't hard at all! Check!
Before:

After:

I know that you can't tell a huge difference, but if you realized that in the before picture all of the darkness on the wood was due to dirt & grime is was just a tad disturbing to me. Now, it's still close to the same color as before, but it's because of the stain... :)

#3: Paint front door

-While at Lowe's a couple of weeks ago, I was looking at the paints & decided that our front door needed a face lift. This was super easy and we love the look of the front of the house from the road. It definitely gives it more of a pop!
Before:

After:

Please excuse the water on the front of the porch. I had just watered my Mums....

#4: Paint basement bathroom & update

- In my opinion, our basement bathroom could have qualified for ugliest bathroom in America. When we purchased this house, it was our full intentions to gut this bathroom and expand into our laundry room to make a large bathroom. However, since we were only in this house for 1 1/2 years before we decided that we wanted to be down in Columbia full time, it fell off that list of things to do, along with lots of other things. But while compiling my project list, I decided that I could give it a small face lift without spending a bunch of money or hiring a handyman, meaning, if I couldn't do it myself, then it wasn't going to be done. So, I painted the bathroom, refinished the countertops as well as the sink. Pictures to be posted later on this week. (I'm waiting on the paint to dry so I can tear off the painter's tape & take a pictures).....

#5: Hang storage in our laundry room.
- I hung a long 9' closet rod in our laundry room last week. They are super easy to install & this was done to show buyers that if they decided to use the Basement Bedroom as a Master Bedroom, then they would have plenty of closet space. It is wonderful!

#6: Wash interior & exterior windows.

-Ugggggh! I don't know if I will do this again. Interiors aren't that bad. Problem is it's the exterior that really needs all the washing due to the weather. And no, no, no... It's not as simple as I thought. I figured that you could just wash them the same way as I did inside. I even purchased this little device to make it easier.....

Since we have older windows, I soon discovered that I had to remove the "screens" however, they are glass, so instead of cleaning the inside & outside, it was really like cleaning the inside of the inside, then the outside of the inside, then the inside of the outside, then the outside. Needless to say, I got finished with the 7 windows in our basement & said, "never, never, never again!" John's response, "I told you that you should have just called that Handyman that your dad uses to do it, but nooooooo, you said that you could do it yourself and save money since you had the squeegee...." Yea, yea,,,, Whatever!

But now I know that when we build our next house, we will definitely have these

See, even Grandma can wash the outside windows......

#7: Decorate for Fall

-Ahh Fall! I love you! My favorite season, hands down! I decorated our Dining Room for fall. I just love it because you can decorate in September and keep it up until Thanksgiving. I've done a little more to decorate since this picture was taken, like added acorns to the bottom of the vases as fillers and such, but everytime I walk through this room, I smile!

#8: Rearrange the Living Room

-This wasn't actually on the list of things to do, but has been something that John has been wanting to do ever since we purchased our married living room furniture almost 2 years ago.....

And I don't really mean rearrange, he just wanted the big leather couch (the "manly" couch) to be moved up where we always lounge to watch tv, where "my" couch (a soft cream curved back sofa)- . So one night I told him, let's move the leather couch, and then go to sleep & when we come downstairs tomorrow, see what we think. Well, for the next week I kept saying, "You were right honey (because he doesn't hear it as much as he would like me to say it....), it was a great idea to move the couch...." And I mean it. It is wonderful. We purchased this couch because of how big it was. It is a little over 8' long and just shy of 4' deep. We love it because both of us can easily lay together on the couch to watch tv, or you could fit 5 people on this couch to sit comfortably. It's a very curl up & relax couch. And surprise surprise, it is nice & we are enjoying it, along with our nights watching movies sharing the same couch & not saying, "Move over, I'm about to fall off the couch!!!!"

Before:

After:

*Note: I know my camera sucks & I'm just waiting patiently for a new camera, but I've got to do some research before I decide which one I want more!*

#9: Host Shower for our Best Friends

Bentley & Suzanne are some of our very best friends in Nashville. Bentley was one of John's groomsmen in our wedding and we just think the world of him & his wonderful fiance, Suzanne, whom we have gotten extremely close to as well! This past Saturday four of us couples hosted a "UT Tailgate Party & Shower" for Bentley & Suzanne. Mark & Emily hosted it at their house, which is wonderful and they have a fabulous deck. We had about 40-45 people attend, which was perfect crowd! The weather was a little warm, but soon cooled off and turned into a wonderful night!

The Couple of the Night: Bentley & Suzanne

Suzanne & I

Emily & Jo Marie, two of the other hostesses, and two of my very best friends!

Some of the girls of the party having a good time!

Lauren, Jenni, Krista, Suzanne, & Louise

The theme was UT Tailgating, so they got lots of fun gifts ranging from: a cooler, UT plates & platters, Coach Coasters, picnic baskets, Pyrex casserole totes, etc, etc...

Ya know, I see a lot of Moms wear this contraption & wondered what it was all about! Let me tell ya, it actually is pretty comfortable & really does the job of letting you have 2 hands free, like to hold a cup with one hand and pour a beer with the other..... Luckily, Blair & Holland (some other of our great friends in Nashville) are very laid back parents to their 4 month old sweet daughter, Mary Knox, and when I asked if I could drink while wearing Mary Knox, she laughed & said, "ABSOLUTELY!!"